Salon 7

Festival du Nouveau Cinema 38: Starts tonight!

2009-10-07T14:45:00.004-04:00

Now that Pop Montreal has receded into the past - a hazy recollection of sights, sounds and bludgeoning hangovers - it's time to put away the more childish concerns and settle into the fall and winter routine of hibernating, reading, and watching movies. But before you pull out your paperback of Dan Brown's latest cloak-n-dagger conspiracy thriller or cloth-bound edition of Charles D'Ambrosio's The Dead Fish Museum (depending on your preferences), might I recommend the 38th edition of Montreal's Festival du Nouveau Cinéma?

The festival kicks off tonight at the Imperial Cinema with the world premiere of Claude Demers' Ladies in Blue, his first film since 2000's L'invention de l'amour. In a distinctly nationalist twist on the old-fashioned red carpet, they'll be rolling out a blue carpet and encouraging all attendees to dress in blue.

This year's festival is predictably huge, which is great, with 200+ films playing at the Imperial Cinema, eXcentris, Cinéma Parallèle, Cinema du Parc, Cinémathèque québécoise and the Goethe Institute.

My Other Blog

2009-09-29T09:32:00.000-04:00

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Etta James, Beyonce, Brand Nubian & Simply Red

The Death of Pierre Falardeau

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Three Versions of Baby, It's You

Memories of Mormon Basketball Players and Miami Bass Musicians

HBO & Jonathan Ames' Bored to Death Television Series

American Apparel Montreal

2009-08-19T09:54:00.003-04:00

If you have a "very high risk tolerance" you might be just what American Apparel is looking for, in either an investor or an employee. Forbes reports the company is still a "buy," which is good, but I'll still prefer payment in cash rather than shares this weekend. I'll be DJing on Saturday, August 22nd at the AA store on St. Catherine Est in the Village from 2pm onwards for the street sale.

AA CEO Dov Charney speaks to Charlie Rose (who fumbles a Yiddishism or two) about AA's product development process, how the buying patterns of "the Metropolitan adult community" are different from that of the Boomers, and various other post-McLuhan musings.

Low Expectations & Diminishing Returns!

2009-05-21T17:45:00.005-04:00

Benjamin Schwarz of the Atlantic Monthly navigates the sad and steady decline of the fashion world between the time of last fall's fashion week in New York and February's, marrying it to F. Scott Fitzgerald's post-Jazz Age assessment: "Now once more the belt is tight and we summon the proper expression of horror as we look back at our wasted youth."

I came across the Wardrobe Refashion website yesterday: a website full of recycled fashion made by some crafty, earnest, and occasionally stylish vow-takers. Canada has its own long-standing version of this, the Preloved boutique and clothing line. While I find the clothing about as appealing as wearing, well, its closest equivalent, the patchwork quilt, recycling fabrics is an interesting and fine idea. An interesting and fine idea that now has taken the form of an abstinence vow at Wardrobe Refashion.

I __________________ pledge that I shall abstain from the purchase of "new" manufactured items of clothing, for the period of 2 / 4 / 6 months. I pledge that i shall refashion, renovate, recycle preloved items for myself with my own hands in fabric, yarn or other medium for the term of my contract. I pledge that I will share the love and post a photo of my refashioned, renovoted, recycled, crafted or created item of clothing on the Wardrobe Refashion blog, so that others may share the joy that thy thriftiness brings.

Yes, it does seem drab. The phrase "recycled fashion" brings to mind Canada's love affair with polar fleece, that ubiquitious and unflattering synthetic wool made from recycled plastic bottles. And often times, it really is that drab, but in some particular instances, such as in the men's dress shirt re-born as a young girl's summer dress (pictured below, and made by Dana Willard), it does work.

Les Argotiers

2009-05-16T12:50:00.030-04:00

I went out with my ladyfriend yesterday for a trip to a national park on the South Shore of Montreal that unexpectedly lead to us poking about a couple of thrift stores, and my becoming proud owner of a pair of hand-made black leather Nettleton loafers. (The company, which introduced the loafer in 1937, refers to itself as The Rolls Royce of Footwear, and indeed, they're exceptionally comfortable shoes.) I wish I could claim that my eagle eyes were responsible for scouting the loafers out, but all of the credit has to go to my ladyfriend, who pushed me away from a pair of too-small pointed brogues that I had been hemming and hawing over.

Needless to say, and with all credit to her, the shoes are gorgeous, fit comfortably, and will be worn to hell by the end of the summer. And at $7.99, this pair of Nettleton's cost less than they did during the last Global Economic Crisis, when according to the above ad, the shoes retailed from between $8.50 & $20.00.

After of last year's decision to embrace colour in summer attire, it appears that this year it's time to take a stab at short-sleeved shirts, which I've steadfastly avoided since some teenage mistakes. Two, to be specific... One in shamrock green with an Operation Ivy stencil on the back, and the other in creme yellow and proudly displaying the four bars of the Black Flag logo on the back. My initial foray thus begins with a (white, red, blue and yellow) Madras short-sleeved shirt, made by Grenadier, a company that I'm unaware of and can find no information on. I estimate I can replicate the APC SS08 catalogue for under $100 in about 8 more shopping trips.

"Now, we do expect the girls to show good taste in everything they wear, but uh, that really shouldn't keep you from expressing your own individuality or personality in selection of clothes, hairstyles and make-up." (Cut to scene of a girl in a mini-skirt dancing, followed by multiple glamour shots of the same girl in a variety of outfits, dancing with a gigantic fabric flower.)
-- Captain Yorke, an Absolutely Groovy Person & Really a Swinger in the film
The Pleasure of Your Company

Some of the perils of a poor grasp of etiquette, dramatized in this 1970s US Military training film, include missing meals owing to an ignorance of dining protocol (Sadsack Sandy just needed to know that her escort should order for her!), being unable to decide whether your escort opens the door if he's not an officer, and confusion about when it's appropriate to wear a mini-skirt. It's easy to mock it, but are we not all wistful for a time when there were established authorities to go to in matters of etiquette and dress? I guess that's why I bought Esquire's Black Book a couple of months ago.

Many years ago I played in a band called FMUSA and an enterprising, if shy, young lady by the name of Aja Robb put on a wonderful show for us at a youth center on the Salt Spring Island (a Gulf Island in between Vancouver and Victoria, that began as a hippie outcome and now swings more high-rent). We were fed burritos, met a fashion photographer who looked like Willem Defoe, and made friends. Aja's now a student at the Emily Carr University of Art & Design in Vancouver, and also a member of the duo Cosmetics, along with visual artist Nic McMillan. If cut-n'-paste aesthetics, art deco fonts & sparse post-punk rhythms and Percaset disco (along the lines of the Chromatics or Glass Candy & The Shattered Theatre) are your thing, I would highly recommend visiting Cosmetics' Myspace page.

Bill Cunningham of the Times brings a fine eye and touching New York accent to the previously down-market world of Peeping Toms.

Picking up my game (just a bit), I wrangled a Cargo Collective account and created an online portfolio highlighting some of the projects I've been involved with over the past couple of years.

They're a band, it's an art & style blog! Montreal's own Nightwood prove their 21st century mettle.

Sam Macon "Shut Ins" & Sylvie Vartan "La Plus Belle Pour Aller Danser"

2009-05-04T03:05:00.002-04:00

Let The Music Play

2008-11-05T13:56:00.016-05:00

Presumably, the model lost a butterfly clip, and Mr. Bourdin
spotted an opportunity to snap this candid image.

For those of you Montrealers who yearn for the type of decadent lifestyle depicted in the commercial and editorial work of such louche libertine photographers as Guy Bourdin and Chris von Wangenheim; who long to frolic with the snarling nereids and frisking satyrs of Helmut Newton's work, who aspire to the ring-flash and satin-clad glitz and Uptown-meets-Downtown glam of the Paradise Garage before it housed out, and who want all that to happen mid-week, well... I've got something for you. Okay, it's only music and not Charles Jourdan stilletos, a von Fürstenberg wrap, and a handsome sterling silver case (classic cocaine paraphernalia), but what music it is!

The erotic overtones are heavy and intended.

Let The Music Play is a new weekly post-disco, boogie, funk and lazer soul evening at Korova Bar Terroir (3908 St. Laurent, above Copacabana) on Tuesdays that I'm partially hosting here in Montreal. My other companions in the noble and valiant fight against boredom in an age of declining expectations and diminishing returns are talented, witty, and devil-may-care. First, newcomer DJ and disco archeaologist Devon Behalak, who has been , and occasionally occupies her weekends at Coda. Secondly, the talented and hyper-active Bain Magique (Matt Bain), who is moonlighting at Korova from his weekly gig at Vinyl - the heart-warming Love: Disco Style.

Many art directors who worked on the design of disco records were known for their elegance, class and embrace of wholesome, yet erotic images. The female form was to be cherished and appreciated, something that the artist Cerrone has paid tribute to on the cover of his 2002 album, "Hysteria."

Musical selections range from bi-coastal representation of the champagne days of New York's Prelude Records (D-Train, Sharon Redd, Unlimited Touch, the Nick Straker Band) and the future-funk of Los Angeles' Solar Records (Dynasty, The Whispers (who I maintain never wrote a bad song), and Lakeside) to significant Italo disco also-rans or rarely-heards. As varied as we are geographically, we are also expansive genre-wise: Latin freestyle receives its due, and we're never too uptight to play Janet Jackson's monster-of-a-song, Escapade.

For more information, including playlists, petty arguments and so forth, join our Facebook group.

Autumn

2008-09-01T00:35:00.011-04:00

Cover photograph by Richard Avedon

More clutter! It's Harper's Bazaar book, 100 Years of the American Female (published in 1967), picked up during a jaunt to the West Island region of Montreal three or so weeks ago and makes a handsome bookshelf companion to another second hand find, Vanity Fair: A Cavalcade of the 1920's and 1930's.

I love books like this - hefty coffee table companions that bring together the peak moments of a magazine's run and are heavy with photography, wit, and breeziness. Fifty years from now are we going to be looking back at articles from contemporary magazines, or (Lord help us) an i-D retrospective from the 90's? The hyperbolic and graceless puff pieces that pass as features in most fashion magazines (from Vogue down to Dazed & Confused and many others) are hardly the high points of sartorial critiquin', but perhaps with the passing of the great oracles of high fashion and culture, the interesting cultural flashpoints don't find coverage in one publication. I'm too lazy to give it much more thought and would rather indulge in some healthy nostalgia, though.

Anita Loos, a Hell of a Woman

Louise Brooks, Also a Hell of a Woman

Packed with photographs and articles from mid-century heavyweights, including contributions from Anita Loos (author of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, who I consider a pint-sized counterpart to Louise Brooks - both of them great writers with bobs), Mary McCarthy, Colette, Susan Sontag, Cocteau on Coco Chanel in words and pencil ("...Mademoiselle Chanel, who fully as much as the poets, scorns frivolity and foible"), Richard Avedon (he figures very heavily in this collection), Cecil Beaton on Marilyn Monroe (Mr. Beaton will receive some attention from me a bit later), and the mod-ish elegance of Hiro (formerly Avedon's assistant and spoken of rarely these days). The highlight has to be the 1920s photograph illustrations, primarily by G. Hart and Malaga Grenet (the elongated and graceful torsos are one staple of fashion illustration introduced in the 20s and never really abandoned - we should have kept the cloche, too!), which appeal so heavily to me.

Annette Benning, in 'Running With Scissors'
She would most certainly have had her colours done

Why, it's Pantone's fall colour guide! Absolutely essential, unless like my friend Billy, you know you're an autumn and that's what you're gonna stay. (Do people still get their colours done, or was that a brief trend that never extended beyond the rumpus rooms of the 1970's?)

The Face Hunter is in Montreal (here and here), and (rumour has it) not impressed. Yeah, no fucking doubt. Am I an old man for preferring the Sartorialist anyway?

Creative Movements

2008-08-26T06:26:00.006-04:00

Subway, 1989, Bruce Davidson

Bruce Davidson shot an amazing series of photographs in New York City in 1980, later published in a book Subway. The photographs are extraordinary, in that "New York will never be like that again" kinda way. Probably for the best. Click here to side-scroll your way through.

Hushie is a music search website that I've found to be more functional and less of a hassle than Hype Machine.

"It was not easy to take a Marine's eyes off a girl's hips. Joseph put the blame for the corruption of the hula on the U.S.O., Dorothy Lamour, and the Honolulu radio stations." There's a wit and sensibility to the New Yorker's article abstracts, especially pre-60s.

While walking to meet a friend late Sunday, I picked up a copy of Jeanne Beker's biography, Jeanne Unbottled at a garage sale. 20 or so pages in, and it's a bit funny: very cute. I can remember watching episodes of Fashion Television (and Fashion File with Tim Blanks) during boring winter afternoons while visiting my father in high school.

Diane Pernet, 1989, by Emmanuelle Gardener

A friend of mine introduced me to former designer Diane Pernet's blog A Shaded View on Fashion recently, and I thought I'd pass along my good fortune. The lofty-haired Manhattanite is also responsible for A Shaded View on Fashion Film festival, which seems like it'll be something interesting. Business of Fashion published a small interview with her about it.

Magazine Club: Fall Fashion & Mr. Dempsey, Ill-at-ease.

2008-08-20T23:33:00.015-04:00

A miserable and rainy summer is almost over, and with dreaded Labour Day around the corner (it's a tragic day when I have to put away the whites), I figured I needed something to make me feel a bit better and stopped by the Renaud-Bray on Parc to pick up a handful of Fall Fashion issues.

Mr. James Franco, pathologically Method actor

First on the block is GQ (Sept. 2008), which devotes (as usual) more page-count to the sport of football than I care for. GQ's fall fashion spread The Timeless Style of JFK, Jr. (p. 372) mirrors much of the preppies-at-rest aesthetic of their spring spread, with lots of patterned shirts, stripes, and American classics like Clarks. It's all very comfortable and pretty safe, but for my bet, I'd prefer the look of the fall/winter A.P.C. collection, which is miles above a lot of what I've seen for the past little while and combines continental collegiate with a slight American influence. This issue feature some interesting tidbits in the Manual section, beginning with some sleeve-rolling tips (p. 154), Scott Schuman's (The Sartorialist) always delightful page features some charming snaps from Los Angeles (p. 160), a nod to Tattersall (p. 172), and Glenn O'Brein's the style guy advice column (p. 217), which features an appreciation of Devo and shots at Donald Trump and Robert Mugabe's contrast colours. (Thank you!)

Another uninteresting Esquire cover, featuring a footballist.

I rarely pick up Esquire (Sept. 2008) anymore, but I was feeling generous and recently there's been a sense that Esquire trying to make amends for a bland period over the past couple of years by reminding us of its past heyday as the journal of style and culture for the American man. In this case, we have 75 Years of Esquire Style (p. 93), which is spectacular - the writing is pithy, fresh and funny, the layouts clever, and maybe they're setting the ground for a revival. One hopes that they can find the next George Lois to design their covers.

One of Mr. Lois' memorable covers

In this issue, we have a delightful little featurette (p. 48) in which 15 year old high school student Nick Wojtasik is tutored in clothing issues by the editors, in the role of surrogate father. Ricky Gervais' contribution, How to Be a Leading Hollywood Player When You're Lazy (p. 56) while not fashion or clothing related, is wonderful by itself. "I've always wanted to play someone in a coma." Chuck Klosterman channels some very George W.S. Trow-like thoughts in The Great American Stasis (p. 118), but seems more depressed and one-note than the notoriously lively and sorely missed Mr. Trow, who I would recommend to anybody simultaneously yearning for more substantial cultural experiences, but feeling terribly distrustful of returning to the comforting folds of subculture. (Who, me?) Specifically, the essay Within The Context of No Context, which originally appeared in The New Yorker and sounds a melancholic note for the passing of a mass culture with heft and gravitas.

The Minimalist vs. Maximalist photo-spread (p. 152), featuring designers, architects and "personalities" like Andre Balazs, Tobias Wong, David Blaine, Harry Allen, James Corner, Marco Pierre White, Vikram Chatwal, and Hani Rashid strikes me as the height of filler and vulgar, at that. What of the fashion? Well, despite claiming 51 pages of Fall Fashion, September's Esquire didn't feature a single photo-shoot!

Another fall issue, another footballist

The champagne to the sparkling wine in this selection is Men's Vogue (Sept. 2008), which does magnificient things for photograph hounds everywhere by allowing Amanda Brooks to publish In Her Eyes, her magnificient blog which carefully compares and contrasts fashion flourishes between archival photographs, current personalities, and the man on the Manhattan street. (Do I ever stop gushing about her blog?) I won't bother you too much with the details, but like every issue of Men's Vogue, you should own this. Don't be put off by some unfamiliar foot-ball player on the cover, instead concentrate on Where I'm Coming From (p. 88), Tom Sykes' intriguing story about his father's dodgy life as a hustler and ne'erdowell; Lady's Choice (p. 118), Sophie Dahl's reportage on the Fall 2008 men's shows in Paris; and many great fall wardrobe choices from medium-priced to high-end.

Consider the following...

Is there any more out-of-his-element celebrity clothes-horse than Patrick Dempsey? I can't say that I follow Grey's Anatomy, or have even seen an episode for that matter, so perhaps the strained eyebrows are a signature element of his charm. But the new fall shots for his recent campaign with Versace features Mr. Dempsey in completely unrelaxed and distinctly uncomfortable poses, swathed in the blacks, trapped in some luxury apartment that appears to popped out of the mind of the art director for Indecent Proposal I don't intend any personal animosity to the actor - he brought me such joy in Can't Buy Me Love - and for that reason I won't even begin to discuss the eyewear campaign. These images are fairly ubiquitious so I didn't post them here. Seek them out at your own peril!

Crave the Rose, Grasp the Thorn

2008-07-19T14:23:00.012-04:00

Made Her Think's Rose Totem Bracelet (2008)

Ideeli's a great site that offers discount luxury that's miles above Winners' or the seasonal sample sale. Unfortunately for me they don't ship to Canada and it's all women's wear and accessories, but just getting the daily e-mails with fun products and great write-ups is a bit like some sort of sartorial junk-food snack. For example, I woke up today to a notification of a sale of Made Her Think jewelry, a Brooklyn-based line designed by Meredith Kahn, who's got a bit of a penchant for the morbid. Her pieces are heavy on skulls, birds, and morbid Victorian funeral imagery, which I'm not that much a fan of, but the Rose Totem Bracelet piece (pictured above) caught my eye, specifically because the roses remind me of cameos (of cameos and cameo habille I'll write about later) and the art-nouvea roses* (the Mackintosh or Scottish rose) of Charles Rennie Mackintosh (which spread to Ludwig Hohlwein and many other art nouveau designers), which were heavily influenced by the Japanese graphic representation of nature.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Rose & Teardrop Design (1923)

The Mackintosh rose is just about one of my favourite motifs ever, though I'm not about to get it tattooed on me. It's a design that though deceptively simple, can go wrong if there's too much colour, especially in a fabric design such as Mackintosh's own Rose and Teardrop design, done in 1923 and picture above. It's not horrible, but it's not as effective for me as the below design (from a British home fabrics company) which while remarkably busy gets a pass for being grey and off-white.

Graham & Brown Rose Wallpaper (Contemporary)

Japanese silk kimono (1920s)

And picture above is an interesting example proving that cross-cultural feedback loops are not only found within the post-McLuhan world: a colourful silk kimono covered with fractured gemoetric Mackintosh roses.

* I'm well aware that the reliefed rose is about as old as roses themselves, especially in jewelry, just saying this is what it made me think of initially!

Charlotte Rampling, 1971

2008-07-16T17:20:00.000-04:00

Ms. Rampling, 1971

Salon 7 Muxtape

2008-06-06T13:58:00.002-04:00

Side A
Serge Gainsbourg featuring Brigitte Bardot Bonnie And Clyde
Woolfey Odyssey
Coyote Too Hard (Aeroplane Remix)
Air France Beach Party
George McRae Rock Your Baby
Antena Camino Del Sol (Todd Terje Remix)

Side B
Quiet Village Keep On Rolling
Fleetwood Mac Brushes (Never Going Back Again)
Strawbs You and I (When We Were Young)
T. Rex Cosmic Dancer
Vilayat Khan Mini Ati Jor
Brian Eno Becalmed

All-Rounder XXVII
Saturday, June 7th
Korova

Headquarters Galerie & Boutique's 2nd Anniversary

2008-06-06T13:33:00.004-04:00

The Headquarters Galerie & Boutique will be celebrating its second anniversary this weekend with a gigantic group show on Saturday. As often as I’ve poked around their frequently updated blog, I’ve yet to visit the store. A birthday seems like a good a reason as any to show up. A couple of notable artists (notable to my uneducated eye) who’ll be participating in the show include The Montreal Mirror’s Rupert Bottenberg and Haligonian illustrator and type-artist Ray Fenwick.

Check out Fenwick’s work on his webpage – the L.L. Cool J lyrics in gaouche (The Slow Jams of L.L. Cool J) are amusing enough, but his series of paintings of friendship bracelets, bracketed with text I would attribute to the recipients of the gifts (“This is great This is so great,” “Whaaa! Th Ohhhh man whoa love it”), is both humourous, a little bit sad, and remarkably on point.

HQ Turns 2
1649 rue Amherst
6:00pm onwards, Saturday, June 7th

Festival Mode et Design Montréal

2008-06-05T09:38:00.004-04:00

We’re halfway through the Festival Mode et Design Montreal, the audience of which seems to be split equally between StyleExchange disasters and girlfriends of Formula 1 fans (who’ll be busy rubbernecking cars and sunning themselves on Crescent Street) looking for diversions. I missed the tribute to YSL by Quebecois designers on Wednesday, and (embarrassingly enough) the only name I was familiar with was Philippe Dubuc, which was the first of two components of the festival that seemed interesting. The other is Saturday’s show of work by recent graduates of École supérieure de mode de Montréal, Cégep Marie-Victorin, LaSalle College, and the Academy of Arts & Design, titled Who’s Next on The Podium? It’s a chance to check out the young graduates who might define Quebec fashion within the next few years.

La Salle College’s program will feature designs inspired by one of three islands: Corsica, Iceland or Fiji, “considering the cultural, geographical, historical, political, and religious aspect of each island,” “to create a garment that is freed from all commercial boundaries.”

Participating designers are: Marie-Ève Gagnon, Julie Charest, Hanene Essayem, Carolina Dos Santos Reis, Anne-Marie Laflamme, Alexandra Ayotte, Clair Lys Bastien Wald,
Sophie Cardinal, Sophie Corriveau, Gabrielle Côté, Virginie Crête, Martin Daoust, Sandra Dallaire, Jessica Defoy, Mylène Fresey, Jessica Julien, Caroline Jutras, Viviane Labelle, Améli Lamarre Lalonde, Flavie Lechat, Daphné Leclerc, Karine Malenfant, Anick Malette, Maude Morneau Paquette, Anne Pier Parent Pelletier, Karine Plamondon, Sophie Plante, Camille Raymond, Débora Souza Tavarez, Mélissa Touchette Tremblay, Célia Véloso, Katia Hémond, Catherine Ocay, Luko Marion, Mandy Chen, and Josée Villiard.

DJ Samantha Ronson, sister of producer Mark Ronson (check out his album Here Comes the Fuzz, his Bob Dylan remix (not as bad as it sounds!), or his high profile work with Amy Winehouse & Lily Allen), and pal to Lindsay Lohan will be playing the closing party at Ultra Lounge on Saturday.

Who’s Next on The Podium?
Avenue McGill College & Ste-Catherine Ouest
4:30PM onwards, Saturday, June 7^th

Elle Québec at the YSL Retrospective

2008-06-04T16:03:00.006-04:00

Your author and ponce

A funny photograph of me at the YSL opening last week, accompanied by some kind of inaccurate text is on the recently re-vamped Elle Québec website, which looks about ten times better. May I forever be known as Jay of British Columbia and known for my dislike of Karl Lagerfeld.

While I'm here, I might as well direct you towards some new additions to the link list on the right side of the page, including Xavier Ames' Easy Low Down, artist's pages from Kayla Guthrie and Sarah Hoemberg, and Melissa Paget's Mafia Hunt.

Appraisal, Bestowal, & Regard: Juergen Teller & Terry Richardson

2008-06-03T18:18:00.016-04:00

Juergen Teller, self-portrait

I was crossing the disaster-like construction zone on Bernard Ouest in Montreal yesterday, dodging potholes and sheets of rain and trying to work out in my mind what makes me prefer Juergen Teller to Terry Richardson, an amusing way to keep my mind off of the drab weather.

Terry Richardson, Self-Portrait

I've heard the two photographers mentioned in the same breath before, because they're both working with compact cameras in a snap-shot aesthetic, have distinct visual styles, and toy with narrative, but while I take time to mull over any Teller image I stumble upon, I recoil when I'm thumbing through a magazine and am faced with a photograph by Richardson. I find most of the images either vaguely repulsive, too garish. I'm not overly prudish - vulgar sexuality has some appeal for me - but Richardon's granulated images, shot with dirty filters against a bone white wall are alienating, suffocating and hopeless; made even more so by the forced erotic exuberance. Teller plays with his subjects, while Richardson toys with them.

Juergen Teller, Go-Sees

Juergen Teller's book Go-Sees: Girls Knocking at my Door (pub. 1999) photographs of girls who arrived at his London studio in the late 90s, hoping to find a modeling contract, and one gets the feeling that unlike Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow Up, the meetings didn't end up in rumbling misogynistic wrestling matches through his studio.

Juergen Teller, Winona Ryder

It's an oft-muttered truism that what compelling advertising is about is aspiration and mood, and not the product, so it's tiring to even have to mention that the clothing is peripheral, if at all present in the photographs Teller has taken for his collaborative campaign with Marc Jacobs. Truthfully, I wouldn't mind if Teller did highlight some of the clothing - Jacobs' clothing is, to my eyes, handsome, tasteful and appealing.

Juergen Teller, Victoria McMenamy

In contrast, Terry Richardson strikes me as heavy-handed even in his non-commercial photographs, and while Teller can do raw and vulgar (such as his above portrait of model Kristen McMenamy for Versace), they come off as glimpses into an intimate and private relationship between the subject and the photographer, and not exhibitionist poses enacted in private destined for public consumption. Whether Teller's photographs are more authentic or not isn't the criteria that I judge them by, but how strongly they resonate with me is.

Juergen Teller, Charlotte Rampling

Terry Richardson is American, with all of the tired and negative connotations of that word - he's tattoeed, mustachioed, his personality overblown. And Teller's quiet German character - his retiring, quiet, and slightly tubby profile - manifests itself as a wounded giant whenever he appears in his photographs, as in the case of the above photograph of him and actress Charlotte Rampling. Wearing only silver shorts, Teller finds seemingly un-self-conscious comfort burying himself in the arms of an actress that was declared by Vogue in 1974 the most beautiful woman in the world, and who committed to a series of risqué photos (Rampling and caviar at Teller's groin, romping through a costly suite in the Hôtel de Crillon in Paris) titled Louis XV promptly after meeting Teller.

Louis XV notwithstanding, Jurgen's hotel rooms are scenes of living - room service has been ordered, a day was spent shoplifting(in Winona Ryder's case), there's a quiet and contemplative pace. Glamour in repose, languid and a little sleepy-eyed, contrasted with hotels that, to Richardson, are likely to be trashed by Damon Dash et al. on a mid-week bender.

Terry Richardson, Stephanie Seymour for Sisley

Terry Richardson has always been associated with two organizations in my mind - Vice Magazine, and the clothing company Sisley. His Sisley work has been, like much of Teller's Jacobs campaigns, shot in the clean confines of slightly shabby 19th century hotel suites. But Richardson's hotel rooms, generally shot for Sisley, are populated by sheeny vampiric people on the move, breathless and perilously incapable of conversation. The highly-sheened and well-oiled models enact seemingly violent pre-coital dances against a wallpaper damask backdrop, the blue, violet and purple hues intensified with a silver tint. This is what I imagine the artwork of a 1995 Roxy Music album would look like - an attempt at empty glamour that's not glamorous, and served without comment.

In this case we find, as in the case of Rampling, a woman (Stephanie Seymour, super-model) past what some might consider her prime (she was 38 at this point) in a hotel room, cast by the voyeuristic Richardson in the role of an Amazon straddling a faceless male model on a Louis XIV-style chaisse.

Juergen Teller, Stephanie Seymour

Here Teller photographs Seymour lying prostrate on Seymour and her husband's duplicate of Jeff Koons' 1992 Puppy. It's compelling, slightly weird, and strangely soothing, and I much prefer it to Richardson's portraits of Seymour. Admittedly Teller was bound to come out on top - Teller worked with Seymour for two years on a series of portraits, whereas Richardson was shooting for an ad campaign and was bound by commercial considerations, the whims of art directors, and quite possibly their idea of who Terry Richardson was, but I think given the same creative conditions, Teller would still fare better.

Terry Richardson, The Beckhams

Primarily, the difference in the two is in method - the method by which they interact with their subjects, and how that is reflected in the final product. Teller initiates relationships, his presence is felt off-camera in his photos, and we are aware of darker themes.

Bob Richardson

Finally, it's worth mentioning that Terry Richardson's father was (occasional) Vogue photographer and boyfriend of Angelica Huston, Bob Richardson; something I first heard about when I stumbled upon a New Yorker profile of Bob Richardson (here's the abstract and his New York Times obit, as he passed in December of 2005), on his photography, his schizophrenia and the fractured state of his life and work. It's sort of strange to ruminate on it, but as much as the two share similarities in work - highly sexualized images that aim at bourgeoisie placidity, there's a depth and eroticism in the darker images of Bob Richardson that is not present in Terry's work. The images are striking, and contemporary, while Terry's seem so desperately of the moment as to be flat and trapping.

Juergen Teller, Victoria Beckham for Marc Jacobs

Interesting how many subjects the two photographers have shared. Most recently, Teller photographed Victoria Beckham for a Marc Jacobs ad that featured her seemingly disembodied legs in heels, popping out of a shopping bag. A little too Adbusters for my tastes, though.

Yves Saint Laurent Passes

2008-06-01T21:24:00.004-04:00

“Every man needs aesthetic phantoms in order to exist."

Yves Saint Laurent, 1936-2008

Obituaries
Libération, Paris Match, NY Times